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Toxins
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Marine Toxins and Food Safety
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Marine Toxins and Food Safety

A special issue of Toxins (ISSN 2072-6651). This special issue belongs to the section "Marine and Freshwater Toxins".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 October 2021) | Viewed by 8028

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Antonio Marques

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Guest Editor
Portuguese Institute for the Sea and Atmosphere, IPMA, Division of Aquaculture, Bioprospection and Upgrading, Portugal
Interests: climate change and chemical contaminants in seafood; contaminant levels and toxicity of contaminants in seafood; consumer risks and benefits; mitigation strategies to reduce contaminant levels in seafood
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Pedro Reis Costa

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Guest Editor
Laboratório de Fitoplâncton, Departamento do Mar e Recursos Marinhos, Instituto Português do Mar e da Atmosfera, Rua Alfredo Magalhães Ramalho, 6, 1449-006 Lisboa, Portugal
Interests: harmful algal blooms; marine toxins
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Marine toxins naturally produced by algal blooms are known to primarily accumulate in filter-feeding organisms such as bivalve mollusks. However marine toxins can be transferred along the food web, and a wide range of organisms can act as toxin vectors to humans, with high potential of causing food-borne illnesses. The way shellfish production areas are currently managed for regulated marine toxins have several limitations, strongly affecting the income of producers. The panorama is worsening due to climate change, where the duration and severity of shellfish production area closure events related with harmful algal blooms are expected to increase, strongly affecting socio-economy. The occurrence of tropical marine toxins in temperate areas will also oblige food safety authorities to implement innovative adaptation measures to diminish the risks of exposure for consumers. In this context, this Special Issue is focused on 1) the identification and characterization of new vectors of marine toxins, 2) the occurrence of new or emerging toxins that may cause human poisoning via food consumption, 3) the effects of food storage and industrial processes on toxin content, 4) the development and optimization of analytical methods for the detection of marine toxins in multiple food matrices, and finally, 5) new strategies for toxins monitoring and the prediction of natural contamination.

Dr. Antonio Marques
Dr. Pedro Reis Costa
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Toxins is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • harmful algal blooms
  • shellfish
  • okadaic acid
  • domoic acid
  • saxitoxin
  • tetrodotoxin
  • ciguatoxins
  • risk characterization

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

18 pages, 13768 KiB  
Article
Tetrodotoxins in French Bivalve Mollusks—Analytical Methodology, Environmental Dynamics and Screening of Bacterial Strain Collections
by Damien Réveillon, Véronique Savar, Estelle Schaefer, Julien Chevé, Marie-Pierre Halm-Lemeille, Dominique Hervio-Heath, Marie-Agnès Travers, Eric Abadie, Jean-Luc Rolland and Philipp Hess
Toxins 2021, 13(11), 740; https://doi.org/10.3390/toxins13110740 - 20 Oct 2021
Cited by 15 | Viewed by 3898
Abstract
Tetrodotoxins (TTXs) are potentially lethal paralytic toxins that have been identified in European shellfish over recent years. Risk assessment has suggested comparatively low levels (44 µg TTX-equivalent/kg) but stresses the lack of data on occurrence. Both bacteria and dinoflagellates were suggested as possible [...] Read more.
Tetrodotoxins (TTXs) are potentially lethal paralytic toxins that have been identified in European shellfish over recent years. Risk assessment has suggested comparatively low levels (44 µg TTX-equivalent/kg) but stresses the lack of data on occurrence. Both bacteria and dinoflagellates were suggested as possible biogenic sources, either from an endogenous or exogenous origin. We thus investigated TTXs in (i) 98 shellfish samples and (ii) 122 bacterial strains, isolated from French environments. We optimized a method based on mass spectrometry, using a single extraction step followed by ultrafiltration without Solid Phase Extraction and matrix-matched calibration for both shellfish and bacterial matrix. Limits of detection and quantification were 6.3 and 12.5 µg/kg for shellfish and 5.0 and 10 µg/kg for bacterial matrix, respectively. Even though bacterial matrix resulted in signal enhancement, no TTX analog was detected in any strain. Bivalves (either Crassostrea gigas or Ruditapes philippinarum) were surveyed in six French production areas over 2.5–3 month periods (2018–2019). Concentrations of TTX ranged from ‘not detected’ to a maximum of 32 µg/kg (Bay of Brest, 17 June 2019), with events lasting 2 weeks at maximum. While these results are in line with previous studies, they provide new data of TTX occurrence and confirm that the link between bacteria, bivalves and TTX is complex. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Marine Toxins and Food Safety)
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11 pages, 2183 KiB  
Article
High Levels of Tetrodotoxin (TTX) in Trumpet Shell Charonia lampas from the Portuguese Coast
by Pedro Reis Costa, Jorge Giráldez, Susana Margarida Rodrigues, José Manuel Leão, Estefanía Pinto, Lucía Soliño and Ana Gago-Martínez
Toxins 2021, 13(4), 250; https://doi.org/10.3390/toxins13040250 - 31 Mar 2021
Cited by 21 | Viewed by 3138
Abstract
Tetrodotoxin (TTX) is a potent neurotoxin, considered an emerging toxin in Europe where recently a safety limit of 44 µg TTX kg−1 was recommended by authorities. In this study, three specimens of the large gastropod trumpet shell Charonia lampas bought in a [...] Read more.
Tetrodotoxin (TTX) is a potent neurotoxin, considered an emerging toxin in Europe where recently a safety limit of 44 µg TTX kg−1 was recommended by authorities. In this study, three specimens of the large gastropod trumpet shell Charonia lampas bought in a market in south Portugal were analyzed using a neuroblastoma cell (N2a) based assay and by LC-MS/MS. N2a toxicity was observed in the viscera of two individuals analyzed and LC-MS/MS showed very high concentrations of TTX (42.1 mg kg−1) and 4,9-anhydroTTX (56.3 mg kg−1). A third compound with m/z 318 and structurally related with TTX was observed. In the edible portion, i.e., the muscle, toxin levels were below the EFSA recommended limit. This study shows that trumpet shell marine snails are seafood species that may reach the markets containing low TTX levels in the edible portion but containing very high levels of TTX in non-edible portion raising concerns regarding food safety if a proper evisceration is not carried out by consumers. These results highlight the need for better understanding TTX variability in this gastropod species, which is critical to developing a proper legal framework for resources management ensuring seafood safety, and the introduction of these gastropods in the markets. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Marine Toxins and Food Safety)
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